The Karjill
enjoy the beginning of The Karjill Once upon a tide, in the young of the year long ago when the earth was still fresh and green, a small clump of seaweed washed ashore. The tide had peaked, but the receding waters mustered a few last rushes of rivulet fingers, which reached for the seaweed, tugged at its floating green hair, and then returned to the sea. If you had been walking along, or swimming or crawling in some earlier evolutionary form, you probably wouldn’t have noticed the ball of seaweed. Neither did little Jom who was intensely and happily beachcombing along. While he was quite open-minded about accepting any sea treasures, and while he would have jumped straight up if he had found the spectacular rainbow spinnet shell, a clump of seaweed was worthless. Jom was a karjill, standing all of two feet high. Actually he was one foot eleven inches, but if you asked him his height, he would push his head high and say “two feet!” To do him full justice on this question (for after all, when you’re small, an inch is very large) maybe, just maybe, if he fluffed the soft fur on the top of his head, Jom was a big two-footer. Jom had risked a lot, and more than he knew, in slipping away from his peaceful but boring higloom in Boulderville. He had run breathlessly fast, or rather, he had taken long jumps down a hill so rocky that it was more like a series of small cliffs that rose from the sea. Time and tide sometimes clash into chaos, sometimes swell together into a moonlit sea of tranquility, and sometimes, very rare times, time and tide meet at the perfect angle of chaos and calm. This was such a time. Jom certainly wouldn’t have noticed the hunk of seaweed if he hadn’t learned a lot about the seashore during his secretive visits during the past two years. He knew he couldn’t expect to find much for another six hours, since it was only after low tide that the sea uncovered its heaviest treasures; but he was still alert for any featherweight gift that might have floated up on a tongue of the sea. Suddenly both of his eyes stung. Had salty water struck them? Jom bent his head down, rubbing both eyes, and he saw a small circle of tan sand around the seaweed, while the rest of the beach was still glistening wet brown. Strange. Usually the seaweed keeps the sand wetter, not drier. Casually he looked closer. The seaweed was spinach-green. Ordinary. He kicked at the clump intending to walk on, but a gleam of light broke through the seaweed. He picked up the ragged green lump, now covered with sand from his kick, and he carefully parted the seaweed. A pearl! Again his eyes stung, almost as if they were drying out. With forefinger and thumb he withdrew a small pearl that burned with a brilliant iridescence surpassing any of the milky pearls he had collected from the muddy oyster banks. “Ouch!” He jumped as he snapped his arm dropping the pearl. His thumb and forefinger throbbed worse than any bee-sting…. “Crouch!” The warning cry of the sentinel rang through the village and ricocheted off the far rocks. The sleepy piles of rugs coiled in alertness, all eyes watching the sentinel who stood on the corner of the wall facing the sea. If he jumped, they would not wait for his cry “jump!” but they would leap for the closest higloom. “What’s wrong?” yelled a karjill. “Don’t know,” came the reply from Yungter, the sentinel. “Looks like someone’s heading up to our village. Doesn’t look like a karjill because he’s got a walking stick. Looks peaceful though. Anyone know him?” Old karjill Thiggins half limped, half hopped up to the wall and squinted down the hillside. “Why it’s Zaric! He hasn’t been around for twenty years or so. Something big must be up!” Using his staff as a vaulting pole Zaric cleared the village wall and threw up his arms in greeting to the karjills. The old ones remembered and respected Zaric, and he probably remembered most of them. “Crouch!” Zaric yelled with a twinkle in his eyes. Automatic reflexes bent the legs of the karjills, ready to spring away from danger. Quickly Zaric smiled. “This is the first karjill community that ever yelled crouch at my approach. Have I been gone that long? Is my beard so much greyer?” demanded Zaric, and he turned his playfully stern eyes upon Yungter. “Well,” explained the sheepish sentinel feeling badly because he had not recognized his friend, “it’s just that you were walking, and usually you just pop in before anyone can think of giving an alert. And besides, you were coming from the sea.” “The sea,” said Zaric, “that is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. Who has been down to the sea?” All smiles were gone. Zaric’s grey drilling eyes that could cut through trees swept the crowd of stunned karjills. With a slow impelling voice that could not be refused, Zaric repeated: “The sea. Who has been down to the sea?” Jom hopped slowly forward. Zaric stood sideways to the fire which threw an angry red on half of his face and tinged his beard pink, while on the darkened side of his face, only his eye flickered amidst grey shadows and black forms. He glanced down at Jom’s feet, then spoke. “Are you the karjill who has been to the sea?” repeated Zaric for the third time that day. His voice was softer, but so demanding and pulling that Jom almost wished he had never seen the sea. Jom forced himself to stare Zaric in the eyes, realizing a bold look would best cover the surging in his stomach and the spinning in his head. Zaric’s gaze seemed to lift his fur and pierce his skin and to know all already. Jom got the strong feeling that Zaric knew the answer to his question. “No,” Jom attempted loudly, but the tiny no barely moved in his throat and was lost in the night. Zaric said nothing but burned his fire-lit eyes into the eyes of Jom, which widened to meet his stare. Jom felt as if the sun was blinding him. He must look away. His eyes felt heavy, heavier, as if all the muscles of his body were going to fold under their vast weight. I must blink. Every nerve and instinct in his body cried out under the strain. Dizzy! Swimming! Head so heavy he would fall! Ready to black out. Eyelids closing. Zaric looked down. A rinsing relief swirled through Jom’s mind, but only momentarily. I’ve won! I’ve held off the gaze of this wizard. Hah. He’s not that powerful. Zaric’s analytical gaze moved slowly down Jom’s body like a surgeon picking the point of incision. Again Jom felt ready to fold up, like he had been kicked in the groin. He fought for control of his limbs, which felt like willows in the wind bending under the great weight of his head. Zaric’s face relaxed slightly after completing his searching look down the quivering length of Jom’s body. Zaric glanced at the ring of karjills, and noticed the ugly mood of some of them—rare for the peaceful little farmers…. Three Stones Seastone Birth of us all The force of the sea is the source of the star In the triadic pulse where all things are Three Stones Earthstone Growth of us all The key of the land is the sea of the star In the triadic pulse where all things are Three Stones Seastone End of us all The force of the sea is the source of the star In the triadic pulse where all things are